Joy Comes with the Morning

In the famous words of Alexander, yesterday was a “terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day!” For maybe the first time I can remember this year, I left work angry – at the students who had misbehaved on the field trip I had planned, at the students who didn’t misbehave but also didn’t step up as leaders to encourage their friends to do the right thing, and at myself for being angry at all of them rather than acknowledging that, well, they’re teenagers, and this will happen sometimes. Then, on the car ride home, I got a phone call from a friend in a really tough position, and I got to sit and listen to her and pray for her but still hung up the phone feeling pretty helpless and knowing that I had not been able to say/do much that could comfort her. So after all that, by the time I walked in the door, I was just done. My roommate asked me how my day had been, and I honestly could not even speak. I just sat down on the couch and cried for a few minutes, and then the words started spilling out as I just let loose a torrent of complaints and frustrations that lasted for about an hour. Even after other fun happenings that night and many efforts by my roommates to comfort and distract me, by bedtime I was still brooding over the bad field trip and despairing over my sad friend as I fell asleep.

This morning, I woke up to no less than 5 different text messages from my friend (complete with way too many exclamation points) about an amazing set of circumstances that God had orchestrated that neither she nor I had anticipated. I sat in my bed in a bit of a stupor, unable to comprehend that only a few hours ago I had been adding her situation to my list of reasons to abandon hope. Yet, here I was, being ridiculously pleasantly surprised again by God's goodness and by the intensity of the joy that I was feeling only a few hours after such intense sadness.

As I thought about this throughout the morning, I realized that this is the pattern that has kept repeating itself over the past few months. These months have been hard -- there's no way around that -- and while I don't always completely lose it like I did yesterday, I often fall asleep with that same sensation of giving up. And as I've talked and prayed through this, I am increasingly recognizing that I am prone to purposely drive myself to give up. Let me explain. Yesterday, I was angry also the field trip, but as I said, I was also angry at myself for being angry. I realized that my anger was mostly a result of my own self-centeredness. I realized that I was angry because I had put months of my time into planning this trip, and not only had the kids not shown me (what I deemed) appropriate appreciation, they had also made me look bad in front of my coworkers. And so my anger ultimately stemmed from the idea that my students were meant to serve my interests, which, I realized, was a completely wrong approach when I profess to be working at my school to serve their interests. Needless to say, this was all pretty humiliating. And so as I came to that realization in the midst of my anger, my gut instinct was to say, "I cannot go to God with this. I deserve all of these negative feelings because they are of my own doing. I do not deserve to be comforted; I do not deserve encouragement. I deserve to suffer and so I will prove to God that I properly recognize my sin by continuing to suffer." With that attitude, unfortunately, there is no way out. Try as they might, my poor friends could not convince me that "the kids were not as bad as you think " or "your friend's situation could actually turn out ok" or even "it's ok to have a hard day." I was actually forcing myself to abandon hope as I fell asleep because I believed that, somehow, that was the "godly" thing to do in recognition of my sinful contribution to the whole mess.

But this attitude, ultimately, must be wrong. It must be wrong because I never deserve anything but suffering, if we're going to be completely honest about it. I am never not sinful. I am never not selfish. My motives are never pure, and God is a god of holiness who cannot stand impurity. So by the standards I claim to hold myself to, I should never feel joy or comfort from God if I'm really going to demonstrate that I recognize my sin. And yet, the Bible is full of verses on God's comfort, on God's mercy, on God's love for his people, who were and are all sinful. How do I reconcile those with my own tendency to refuse to be comforted? The answer is that I can't. And so then why do I think that it is more "godly" to go to bed hopeless than to go to bed believing that Jesus loves me and accepting his comfort and hoping for his redemption? The answer is that I am still trying to earn God's favor and love, rather than accepting that he has given it as a gift. The irony is that by wanting so desperately to earn that love, I often miss getting to actually experience it when it is laid out in front of me.

So this morning, as I lay in bed reading all those exclamation points, I was thankful that the news was dramatic enough to wake me out of my stupor and surprise me with joy. I was forced to come to grips with the fact that, in spite of my sins of self-centeredness, anger, and hopelessness, God was comforting me even though I didn't deserve it. The verse, "Weeping may tarry for the night, but joy comes with the morning" (Psalm 30:5) kept whispering through my head as I got up, drank my coffee, and began the business of my day. Only now have I finally gotten a chance to sit down and read the context of that verse, which begins with "for his anger is but for a moment, but his favor lasts for a lifetime." I've been thinking about that "moment" and thinking about Jesus on the cross, taking upon himself the wrath that I deserve and imputing to me the benefit of God's favor for a lifetime. When I deny that gift, I am not more godly; I am just plain stupid. It is right to grieve over my sin, but the kind of grief that I love, the kind that keeps me falling asleep in forced misery, is foolishness. I keep picturing a child who opens the most wonderful present but, to prove to her mom and dad that she knows it is too good for her, refuses to play with it. I am that child now, but I want be growing to be one who can "sing and dance in the love of the God the Father, the Son and the Spirit." I feel like I'm just starting to see my heart turning a little more in that direction. I pray it continues, but will try not to "earn it" by forcing myself to be joyful--only by grace.

Lord, thank you that you woke me up with joy this morning, too early for my senses to fight back against it. Forgive my pride and teach me to rejoice, even in the midst of mourning, in the joyful circumstances that you bring me so often. Even more, teach me to rejoice in in the joy of your presence that, even when the circumstances continue to be grievous, is always with me.